Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Baby Shower!

My baby shower took place on Sunday. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I kind of figured it out. What did surprise me though was that the person who hosted the shower was my mom's best friend! So I was a little confused when we ended up at her house because my mom said she "needed to pick something up from _____'s house". :)

There were about 30 people invited, and everyone came! I feel truly blessed to have such amazing family and friends. We played games, and ate lots, and we received so many gifts for the baby! The important things were covered off of our registry, and we got lots of cute clothing and stuff too. DH was so happy that everything turned out so well, and said he felt relieved and more ready for the baby now that we had a lot more things for her. We still have to buy a crib mattress and a few essentials, like diapers and wipes, but for the most part, the shower covered off everything else that we'll need up front! I seriously can't thank everyone enough! They are all so genuinely excited for this baby, and their excitement really melts my heart. :)

Here are some pics from the shower:


This is me looking quite pregnant with my mommy-to-be banner, and all the beautifully wrapped gifts.


This is the table of goodies. :) My aunt decorated both the cake and all the cupcakes, she really is amazing at decorating this stuff. The cake was delicious and so cute!!


Cupcakes so beautifully decorated by my aunt.


Friends and family. :)


More friends and family.


Ladies hard at work playing games. I think this game is the one where you have to name baby items from A-Z within a timeframe. :)


I was terrible at this game. I only had 9 items.... haha



There was sushi! Vegetarian of course, but oh how I have missed it! You better believe I chowed right down on that. ;)


Opening gifts! So many beautiful gifts!


Our little girl is 100% spoiled before she even gets here. :)


Friends and cousins watching as I open gifts. :)


Some of the cutest baby clothes I've ever seen! My cousin gave us this onesie that had cats in air balloons on it. So sweet!


We received a jungle themed exersaucer from my brother and sister in law (she's standing to the left in black in this picture), and we also received a jungle play mat from my college girlfriends. Baby girl won't be shy of great toys to play with!

I had such an amazing time, and it was great to see everyone together. The shower definitely made me even more anxious and excited to have this little baby so that everyone can meet her. Everyone is on edge just waiting!

I just seriously cannot express how much appreciation and love I feel for my family and friends. :)

32 days left!


I'm so excited to be so near the end of pregnancy. In a month, give or take a week or two, I'll be meeting this little girl! Pangs of this reality hit me like a ton of bricks out of nowhere, but for the most part, I'm still trucking along (albeit slowly) like it's business as usual.

My best friend had her baby girl yesterday a week early via c-section, and she was 4 weeks ahead of me. Now that her little girl is here, all I can think is... Holy #(*@(#!!!! I'm next!! lol It's a both scary, and wonderful thought. 

I think tomorrow is going to be the day that I give in my last day of work! I think that I will leave beginning February 13th, which is 2 weeks before I'm due. I've been so tired, and feeling horrible with all the heartburn and reflux that I've had to call in sick a few times, so I think I'm just getting to the point where it's time to say goodbye to my job. :( I'm sad that I am leaving and not able to return, but excited at the same time for the year that I will spend taking on new challenges in life before I have to find a job again.

I had my baby shower last weekend, but I'll leave that to the next post so that I can put up some pictures along with it. :)

Saturday, January 21, 2012

More knitting as nesting!

Well, my baby's feet will never be cold! I downloaded a bunch of crochet patterns for booties. It's been a long time since I've crocheted anything, so it's exciting that these have turned out so well. Can't wait for those little feet to get here! :) More to come, this is only 2 of 5 patterns!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Knitting is nesting!

I should have more motivation to nest than to knit, but truth be told, knitting is just so much more fun. :) Currently on my needles is a pair of cabled mitts and I'll have to take a pic of those, but I also had fun knitting these and wanted to share. This sweater/hat combo is one that I knit for my friend's baby (who will be here in 8 days via c-section), but I also made this same sweater pattern in pink/purple for my own baby, just haven't got around to taking a picture of it yet. :)


Wednesday, January 11, 2012

I've had it with work.

I'm kind of sick of posting about this on the bump, so I'm going to get this off my chest once and for all.

I'm losing my job when I go on mat leave. I've known this for two months. My term ends in April, so I'll work up until my maternity leave, and then my job will cease to exist... awesome.

I can get over losing my job and all that jazz, but I can't get over how impossible it is becoming to want to work here until my leave. I'm less than two months away from going on leave, and I haven't had any motivation to work since I found out I was being laid off. I mean really... what is the point in working hard? It's not going to get me anywhere... To that end, what's the point of working at all? My time here is OVER.

That being said, obviously I need to make money up until my leave, and I guess that should be my motivation, but I'm so freakin' exhausted, bitchy and just generally don't give a crap about this place that it's tempting just to leave here a month early and say "Screw it".

DH thinks that is exactly what I should do, and maybe it is.... but I feel like then I would be losing a month that I could spend with the baby when she's here. I'm fortunate enough that I will have 11 months of leave, since DH is only taking 1 month of it, but if I use a month of mat leave (before the baby gets here), then I have 10 months with the baby when she's actually here. That's still a lot I realize when you compare my leave to what other people in other countries have... but since I have no job to return to, I could really use the 11 months, because I'm sure 6-8 months of that will be taking care of the baby, and the rest would be for trying to find another job.

This post is really pointless and I realize it's kind of just a jumble of thoughts, but it's just bugging the crap out of me.

I just hate going to work every single day thinking to myself "WHY AM I HERE!??????". I'm disappointed that this job is ending, because I worked my ass off to get it, and after 2 and a half years of working here, they're just going to drop me out on my ass all due to government cutbacks. I could understand if I was a shitty employee, but I'm not!!! My boss loves me!!! Unfortunately, he doesn't get to make the decision over whether I stay or go, and the people who do make those decisions have no idea who I am or what I do. They just see me as a number on a list in a department.. and since I'm term, I'm the first to go.

I have no idea what my future holds. I only pray that DH doesn't get caught up in the same fate as I do since he also works for the government, and his job could be at just as much risk as mine was (even though he is a permanent employee).

Working for the government was supposed to be the stable and secure choice.... Yeah right. This entire city is a government town, and the government now wants to take down all the public service jobs. There are not enough jobs in the private sector to accommodate the amount of job losses that are scheduled to come down in February.

You know... if I was smart, I would have taken a job in Calgary or something where the government will be less affected by cuts, and DH could have gone there too with his job... but with a baby on the way, I didn't want to be far from family, and all of our family lives here in this dead-end freakin' city.

Again... sorry this is all a big jumbalaya... I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. I'm hormonal, pissed off, can't sleep to save my life, and this working while pregnant stuff SUCKS MONKEY NUTS!!!!!

Okay... I think I'm done.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Kickity kick

I don't know if it's because I just notice it less during the day or what, but this baby is absolutely bananas at night! The moment I lay down to get comfortable for sleep, she's moving all over the place! Last night, my belly was like a bouncy castle, and I was so distracted by it, and amused by it that sleeping was pretty much impossible.

DH is pretty funny about the whole belly/movement thing. He's really squeamish about my alien belly, and whenever it moves, he gets all cringy, wrinkles his nose, and wriggles his fingers all around. Unless I put his hand on my belly, he never tries to touch it.

Well, since the baby was so active last night, I put his hand there. I think the last time he felt my belly, he only would have felt small flutters, and now that baby is big, you can seriously feel body parts, especially the knees and feet. I think yesterday was probably the first time that the movement actually felt -human- to DH, and though he was still pretty squeamish about it, he did keep his hand there and admit that the feeling was pretty cool.

The closer we get to the finish line, the cooler it is to see DH change in to more and more of a fatherly figure. We will both be entering this new world, and it will be so interesting to see who we become as parents. I am looking forward to watching DH hold his daughter and play with her. He's excited about being able to feed the baby, and for that reason he's a little disappointed in the breast feeding in the beginning, but if all goes well, when things slow down, I'll pump just so that he can take part in that. I'm glad to see that he's so involved already. Before this month, DH kind of really never had anything to say about the baby or our future and it made me worry a bit that he wouldn't come around until the baby was born, or much later on in the baby's life (because I know it can be hard for men to connect with infants). It's so nice to see that he really is starting to see his life with his daughter, and it's the cutest thing in the world to see him just as excited about all of this as I am.

Just my thoughts for today. :)

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Knit my first onesie :)

I can't take credit for the pattern because I bought it off of Ravelry.com, but I think I did a pretty good job knitting it. :) I think I'm going to stripe the next one. Can't wait to put it on my little girl!!

Friday, January 6, 2012

Happy New Year!

So 2012 is here is it? Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately, I've just been so tired. Some days it feels like I've reverted to first trimester where 50% of my day was spent sleeping, and the other 50% was spent at work trying not to fall asleep.

To recap Christmas and New Year's quickly, it went a little something like this: zzzzZZZZzzzzzzzzz...

We didn't do much. It was a quiet holiday and DH and I spent most of it on our own, with the exception of Christmas Day and Boxing day when we visited my parents, then DH's parents, but left both places early because I kept falling asleep. I'm the narcoleptic pregnant lady.

While 2011 was a fun year in retrospect and we had a lot of luck come our way, I'm glad it's over, and I am looking forward to 2012 for obvious reasons. It becomes increasingly harder to believe how close to the end of this pregnancy I am. I am in the home stretch! I can get away with saying that NEXT MONTH, I will have a little baby girl!! (Unless of course, she decides to overcook and stay in there until March. ;)

I pulled the baby clothes out that I was given from a friend the other day to take a peek at what she passed along. It was a really weird feeling pulling all of those tiny clothes out of there. It's also a really weird feeling to receive baby gifts. It's sort of like receiving an alien for Christmas. The feeling is hard to describe, but it's just so foreign. It's like you know what the gift or item is for, but because the baby isn't here yet, you're receiving a gift or item for the future, I don't know.. it's just really hard for me to explain. Baby Ashley is going to be a very well dressed and spoiled little girl when she gets here. :)

Here's a picture of me this week taken yesterday at 32 weeks and 3 days.


Sorry this post is so random. I'm so tired, it's seriously hard to string together a cohesive train of thought these days. Thank god that I'm leaving work early today, it's going to be a challenge to make it to noon at this point. :)